Friday, August 21, 2015

A Plan Is Hatched

I'd been in town about four months or so. Work was going pretty well. I was doing the overnight shift on the biggest radio station in a good-sized market in the American South. The feedback I was getting from the audience was good. The program director and station manager seemed happy they'd hired me.

The hours were terrible though. Five days a week I would be on the air from midnight to 5AM. I'd get back to my apartment by 6:30AM and sleep until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. By 10PM or so I was usually back at the station doing show prep and, increasingly, cutting spots and doing sounders that would be used throughout the broadcast day. They were making me the voice of the station-- without extra pay, of course. No problem for me. I was happy to have the work.

But those hours were killin' me. On the weekends I couldn't go back to "normal" time because then I'd be wasted at work Monday and Tuesday. The biggest problem, however, was no social life. Sure, I had afternoons and evenings open but because I had to be at work later I couldn't get too crazy. And, because I was at work when everybody else was gone I didn't even know the people at my station. I'd heard a couple of the women that worked there were gorgeous but I didn't know it first hand.

When I was out shopping or going somewhere to eat during my waking hours I loved what I saw of my newly adopted home town-- a vibrant, growing, busy city filled with beautiful girls. And those women were friendly too. At least the store clerks, waitresses and the like that I interacted with were sweet. To a fish-out-of-water boy from the Midwest they seemed flirtatious. But, they were actually just very nice to everybody.

So at about this four month mark the station decided to assign someone from the sales department to meet with me once a week or so to come up with ways to increase advertising on my show. Most of the spots I ran were national-- Coca-Cola, airlines etc. and the idea was to drum up local business. The guy who had the least seniority got the assignment. Radio station sales is a tough gig. The senior guys have the big accounts. The new hires mainly prospect for new clients. If they can't make their "draw" in commissions they're out and a new kid tries it. So, the guy they assigned me, Roy, was eager to make some money and succeed.

Roy and I got along well. We'd meet for dinner on Wednesdays, normally, and kick around ideas for a few hours. He'd use a station trade-out for the tab so it was a free meal to boot. Of course, in addition to talking about business we'd discuss other things-- mainly, sports, cars, and girls.

Now Roy wasn't exactly setting the dating world on fire either so he got pretty restless listening to my tale of woe, especially after I'd filled him in on my recent escapades out west with the trophy wife and her best friend. I made the mistake of telling him about Peaches and Cora-- who were strictly friends-- and he thought I was crazy to not be trying to bang both of them. Roy was pretty horny.

One night he came up with a workable plan for me, however. He told me about a broadcasting school in town. I didn't see how that was going to help me much plus I figured it was some scam school anyway. He assured me that they were reputable and above board. Still, assuming they were legit, how did that help me meet girls?

Roy explained that they used local radio and TV talent to come in and conduct lessons. They paid decently and the classes were 6-9:30 at night weekdays and all day Saturdays. They were always looking for more media people to teach or guest lecture.

"So your answer to my lack of pussy is 'work more hours'?" I said.
"You're not thinking this through, Wil. Who do you think goes to a broadcasting school?"
"I don't know... geeky guys who think they could be the next Jay Thomas? Guys who go to Radio Shack and build their own stereos? I don't know."
"Well, yeah. Some of them would be in the class. Who else?" Roy said.
"Guys who want to be Tom Brokaw but can actually pronounce the "L" sound correctly unlike him?"
"God you're dense. Stop thinking about guys! Think of all the high school girls in the metro area. Now focus on the really pretty ones... the ones who people have told are so pretty they should be on TV... or a model... or even Miss fuckin' America."
"Yeah?"
"So, these girls get out of school and maybe they go to college or maybe they go to work... some of them hear the ad on the radio or see the ad in the paper and figure, 'why not me?'" Roy said.
"Really?"
"Yeah, really, each class is about 30 students. Of those 30 about 5 or 6 are babes. Total fucking babes. Every time. Year after year. Hot chicks! So fucking hot."
Roy was getting worked up about it.
"And you know this how?" I said.
"I went there after I got out of college. I wanted into the radio TV business and, hey, it worked... here I am in glamorous show business buying dinner for some on-air asshole."
We both laughed.